Making money out of recorded music is a passing fad, a mere hundred year or so blip in the history of music.
The first historical evidence of music is from ancient Mesopotamia, around 4000 BC, though there is no reason to doubt that it dates back many thousands of years before then. People performed and enjoyed live music: there was no other choice until the late 1800s. Recorded music was simply unimaginable.
The rise of recorded music was based on technology being able to create and play records which was not easily copied. Recorded music also fed the demand of radio producers and listeners. A great deal of money was to be made manufacturing recorded music. The "music industry" was born.
Now recorded music is easily copied. It is just digital data to be transferred, copied, and processed. We are in the "copy and paste" generation.
The music industry will hold on as long as possible, pushing intellectual property law as far as it will go. This position is unsustainable.
The music industry will also scream dire warnings for the future of music - bizarrely, as music thrived for thousands of years with no notion of recorded music.
But the idea that anyone made money out of recorded music will be as strange to our children as would have done to our pre-Victorian ancestors.
There will still be money to be made for the writers and live performers of music, as there always has been, but the relatively brief moment of the "music industry" has now come and gone.
Tuesday, 7 October 2008
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4 comments:
In that case, perhaps the only viable career for "bands" like Girls Aloud is to provide fodder from which socially-challenged individuals can create unpleasant sexual fantasies.
"Now recorded music is easily copied. It is just digital data to be transferred, copied, and processed. We are in the "copy and paste" generation.
...
But the idea that anyone made money out of recorded music will be as strange to our children as would have done to our pre-Victorian ancestors."
Would you say this also applies to the rest of copyright? Text is also awfully easy to duplicate these days.
Dear Mojo
I was saving my view on that for a further post!
In respect of the information contained in books, then I suggest the implication will be the same.
But some people like books, as physical objects. I am one such person. I could never be as sentimental about a metal or vinyl disk, or even a C60 cassette. The book still has a future, as one is purchasing more than the information contained therein.
I hope this change leads to an increase in the quality of book production, so as to make a book always worth purchasing as an object initself.
However, I do think certain publications will now just fall away.
In particular, there will be a shift of boring stuff like law reports and journal articles to the web.
Best wishes
Jack
One publisher that I like, Baen Books, has a free library on-line as well as giving a CD copy of a series back issues with the latest book. You can subscribe to their full library for a few pounds per month which also entitles you to the 'proof' copies if you wish.
Why do they do this? It sells more books. IIRC I think they quoted 80% of the money comes from the first year of a books life, when they added the free library it went to >40%, because people like picking up a book and reading it. What people don't like is shelling out a tenner for a doorstop.
There's a good explanation here, just hit the "home" button on the left
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